'Flexing some democratic muscle': The representations of Brexit demonstrations in daily national UK newspapers

“展示一些民主力量”：英国每日全国报纸对脱欧示威的报道

• 批准号: 2525884
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Nottingham Trent University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2525884
• 关键词: Flexing; some; democratic; muscle; representations

Recent laws have been put in place in America that increase penalties for protesting in groups, ban protesters from wearing masks, and protect drivers from liability if they hit a protester. More and more anti-protest laws are being introduced, creating hostility towards protesters and putting strain on rights to free speech and democracy (Gabbatt, 2017). For example, in prisons across the US, inmates protesting for the right to vote have been threatened with solitary confinement, transfers to different penitentiaries, and had their cell windows painted black so they do not know whether it is night or day. Furthermore, in England, six activists who were protesting against the felling of trees in Sheffield were arrested on false grounds to be kept 'out of the way' (Pidd, 2018). Similarly, a student protestor was charged for violent disorder, hit with a police baton, and put to trial despite only marching in the 2010 student protests (Segalov, 2015). Police also arrest protesters and publicly shame them on social media by posting their pictures, names and addresses (Levin, 2018).By pursuing protests and protesters as a research topic, I intend to analyze the ways in which political protestors are represented in British and American newspapers with different political alliances. My study will aim to answer the following four questions:Is there a correlation between newspaper political alliance and how protestors are represented?If so, do these representations impact democracy and freedom of speech?Will negative representations of protestors lead to further restrictions on political gatherings and activism?Have these representations changed over time?Although the representation of political protesters has been studied in recent years, these studies seem to focus on individual protests, rather than the representation of political protesters on a national or global scale (see Ebrahim, 2018; Koca-Helvaci, 2016). These studies therefore cannot draw conclusions about public and political perceptions of protesters on a broad scale. Changing discourses over time have also recently been researched, but they take one narrow topic. For example, Kay and Mendes (2018) researched how British suffragette Emily Wilding Davison was represented in newspapers from 1913-2013. Although this paper considers the newspapers representations and its implications on feminism, it does not consider democracy as a whole, as my project seeks to do. Currently, I feel Britain and America are both very divided countries; since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States of America, 'the country is more divided and angry that it has been in decades' (The Economist, 2018: 11), and Brexit has left England as 'a land divided' (Freedman, 2016). Given the current political climate, I think it is now more important than ever to research our democracy and freedom of speech on a national and global scale, and analyze the language used about protests and protestors in an attempt to help stop the marginalization and prosecution of protesters and ensure everyone's voice is heard. Protesters help alter political agendas and start debates (Norman, 2017), so are absolutely vital to our democracy. Additionally, some studies have shown how the representation of protesters in newspapers is one of negativity. For example, Ebrahim (2018: 361) found in her study of South African university student protests, newspapers 'foregrounded students' violence at the expense of their positions as agents of transformation', and constructed them as 'vandals', 'violators' and 'law-breakers' (Ebrahim, 2018: 363-366). However, Lee (2014) found that newspaper protest coverage has become less negative over time, particularly when protests address a political matter. It will also be important to my study to note whether representations of protesters have changed over time, and if these changes correlate to particular newspapers or political alliances, so we

美国最近出台的法律增加了对群体抗议的处罚，禁止抗议者戴口罩，并保护司机在撞到抗议者时不承担责任。越来越多的反抗议法律被引入，对抗议者产生敌意，并对言论自由和民主权利施加压力（Gabbatt，2017）。例如，在美国各地的监狱中，抗议投票权的囚犯受到单独监禁的威胁，被转移到不同的监狱，牢房的窗户被漆成黑色，这样他们就不知道是白天还是黑夜。此外，在英格兰，六名抗议谢菲尔德砍伐树木的活动人士被以虚假理由逮捕，以便“置身事外”（Pidd，2018）。同样，一名学生抗议者被控暴力骚乱，被警察用警棍殴打，并被审判，尽管他只参加了2010年的学生抗议活动（Segalov，2015）。警察也会逮捕抗议者，并通过发布他们的照片、姓名和地址在社交媒体上公开羞辱他们（Levin，2018）。通过将抗议和抗议者作为研究主题，我打算分析政治抗议者在英国和美国报纸上的表现方式，不同的政治联盟。本研究的目的在于回答以下四个问题：报纸政治联盟与示威者的代表方式之间是否存在相关性？如果是这样，这些代表是否影响民主和言论自由？对抗议者的负面描述是否会导致对政治集会和活动的进一步限制？这些表述是否随着时间的推移而改变？虽然近年来对政治抗议者的代表性进行了研究，但这些研究似乎侧重于个人抗议，而不是国家或全球范围内的政治抗议者的代表性（见Ebrahim，2018; Koca-Helvaci，2016）。因此，这些研究无法就公众和政治对抗议者的广泛看法得出结论。最近也对随着时间的推移而变化的话语进行了研究，但它们只涉及一个狭窄的主题。例如，凯和门德斯（2018）研究了英国妇女参政者艾米丽·威尔丁·戴维森在1913年至2013年的报纸上的表现。虽然本文考虑了报纸的陈述及其对女权主义的影响，但它并没有像我的项目所寻求的那样将民主作为一个整体来考虑。目前，我觉得英国和美国都是非常分裂的国家;自从唐纳德·特朗普当选美利坚合众国总统以来，“这个国家比几十年来更加分裂和愤怒”（《经济学人》，2018年：11），英国脱欧使英国成为“分裂的土地”（弗里德曼，2016年）。鉴于目前的政治气候，我认为现在比以往任何时候都更重要的是在国家和全球范围内研究我们的民主和言论自由，并分析有关抗议和抗议者的语言，以帮助阻止抗议者的边缘化和起诉，并确保每个人的声音都被听到。抗议者帮助改变政治议程并开始辩论（诺曼，2017），因此对我们的民主至关重要。此外，一些研究表明，报纸上对抗议者的报道是消极的。例如，易卜拉欣（Ebrahim，2018：361）在她对南非大学生抗议活动的研究中发现，报纸“突出了学生的暴力行为，牺牲了他们作为变革代理人的地位”，并将他们构建为“破坏者”，“违法者”和“违法者”（Ebrahim，2018：363-366）。然而，Lee（2014）发现，随着时间的推移，报纸的抗议报道变得不那么负面，特别是当抗议涉及政治问题时。对我的研究也很重要的是，要注意抗议者的表现是否随着时间的推移而发生了变化，如果这些变化与特定的报纸或政治联盟有关，那么我们就应该注意这些变化。